San Diegoで9月に開催されたISCARにて、コスプレ・コミュニティにみる学習について発表してきました。
Abstract
This study seeks to demystify one of a subculture of extreme fans and mavens known as “otaku” who are get really into animation/manga/games. Some otaku people are willing to do “Cosplay” (short for “costume play”) that is a female-centered underground hobby focused on dressing as characters from manga, anime, video games, singers, and so on. Although Otaku people heavily engaged with animation/manga had been often portrayed incomprehensible aliens in Japan, in the past decade, fueled by the Internet and digital media, otaku culture has become increasingly visible in Japan (as well as overseas like west coast in US).
This is an ethnographic case study of Cosplay groups as communities of practice. The central body of data behind this paper is a set of an in-depth interviews and observations collected from 2004 to 2006 by Okabe. Our study involved thirteen female Cosplayers, including college students and professionals (aged 20-28).
Cosplay can be seen at dedicated Cosplay parties at amusement parks and events for fanzine sale. They gather in Cosplay events with costumes of their own sawing or ready-made ones, and are photographed by the audiences or each others. Alike previous ethnographic studies have revealed, there are some boundaries or gatekeepers to be accessed to become a certain member of Cosplay community. Meanwhile, most Cosplayers conceal their Cosplay activities from classmates, colleagues, and family. That means they have to manage and live in their alternative identities to keep the normalcy of their mundane lives. We’d like to focus on these kinds of their identity game on the poster.
Cosplayers negotiate and develop certain inventive conventions of costume playing among their peer networks and through artifacts. Thus this topic is related to sub-theme of Learning and development of disciplinary knowledges.
Key words
1: Cosplay
2: Community of practice
3: Sub-culture
Daisuke Okabe and Chihiro Okazaki, “Learning to be Underground: How Cosplayers gets Cosplay activity.” ISCAR, San Diego, September 2008.
